Wilt’s 100: A night to remember

Before he will discuss details of the most prolific individual offensive performance in the history of basketball, Al Attles insists you understand two facts about the night Wilt Chamberlain, the late Hall of Fame center, scored 100 points for the Philadelphia Warriors in a game against the New York Knicks 50 years ago tonight:

- The Warriors won the game, a fact Attles fears is “contrary to public opinion.”

- Chamberlain tried to take himself out of the game before he reached the magical 100-point mark because his team was so far ahead and he was getting tired.

Attles has spent his entire professional life with the Warriors, 11 as player, beginning in 1960; 14 as head coach; and an additional 27 in the front office. He had 20 assists, most of them to Chamberlain, in the near-mythical game in Hershey, Pa., on March 2, 1962. He bristles at suggestions Chamberlain tried to “rub it in” on the Knicks to get to 100 points.

In the locker room after a game witnessed by only 4,124 spectators, Attles recalls the jubilation of his teammates, ? with one notable exception.

“We were sitting in the locker room, and Wilt was sitting next to me,” Attles recently told a room full of reporters in Oakland. “He was reading the stat sheet. The rest of us were very, very happy for him scoring 100 points, but he was the only guy who had this down look on his face.

“I said, ‘Big Fellow, what are you upset about?’ And he said, ‘I never thought I’d take 60 shots in a ball game.’

“In my infinite wisdom I said, ‘Yeah, but you made 36 of them and we’ll take that any day of the week.’?”

It wasn’t Chamberlain’s 36-for-63 field-goal shooting that was most remarkable. What enabled the 100-point game was anomalous free-throw shooting by a chronically challenged foul shooter whose career percentage was 51.1 percent.

He made 28 of 32 free throws, 87.5 percent, against the Knicks that night.

Gary Pomerantz, author of “Wilt, 1962: The Night of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era,” calls Chamberlain’s uncommon free-throw accuracy “the true miracle of Hershey.”

Pomerantz also asserts that Chamberlain is the most transformational figure in NBA history.

“When Wilt enters the NBA in 1959 it’s the big bang, a changed basketball Earth,” Pomerantz said. “First off, he changed the geometry of the game and the men who would play it. He enters a league that still had set shooters, a feet-on-the-floor horizontal game, and he takes it vertical and makes it his.

“He leads his generation of stars — Bill Russell, Elgin Baylor, Oscar Robertson among them — and together, they’re the bridge from the old to the new.”

Chamberlain’s ascendance as the most dominant player the sport ever had seen was even more significant for what it did to speed the acceptance of African-American players, according to Pomerantz.

“He enters a league that unquestionably had a quota that limited the number of black players, one or two per team and, later, three or four,” the author said. “What Wilt did in 1962 by averaging 50 points per game against the league’s white players and throwing down that 100 point thunderbolt in Hershey was to blow that quota to bits. The game was going to be more athletically luminous; it would be played faster and higher than ever.”

Chamberlain’s 100-point game was integral to the most amazing statistical season in NBA history. He played every minute of the 80-game 1961-62 season and averaged 50.4 points per game and 25.7 rebounds. Forty-five times that season he scored 50 or more points. In 14 games he scored 60 or more. In addition to his 100-point game he had games of 78 points (with 43 rebounds) and another of 73 points.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich was a 12-year-old in 1962, admitting he was more interested in girls than the NBA. Nevertheless, Chamberlain’s 100-point game got his attention.

“It really is incomprehensible,” Popovich said. “It’s tiring to think about. If you had to score 100 two games in a row, combined, it would be tiring. To do that much, and then get 25 rebounds along with it, it’s almost unbelievable.”

mikemonroe@express-news.net
Twitter: @monroe_SA

CHAMBERLAIN BY THE NUMBERS

Wilt Chamberlain changed pro basketball with his athleticism and the amazing numbers he put up in his career. Here are some:

2 – NBA championships (1966-67 with 76ers, ?’71-72 with Lakers)
13 – All-Star Game appearances
22.9 – Career rebounding average, best all time
27.2 – Average rebounds per game in his second season, best ever. Owns six of top seven rebound seasons of all time.
100 – Points scored in a single game for Philadelphia vs. New York in ?1962, an NBA record
702 – Total assists in ’67-68, good enough to lead the NBA